About Me

I'm a semi-retired professional man, living in the Midwestern United States. This blog is a personal blog and is not directly connected with my professional practice (although I may draw upon my professional experiences, as well as my personal experiences, in writing my blog posts). This is a place for personal, not professional, opinions.

May 2016

05/29/2016

No man's really any good till he knows how bad he is, or might be; till he's realized exactly how much right he has to all this talk about "criminals," as if they were apes in the forest ten thousand miles away; till he's got rid of all the dirty self-deception of talking about low types and deficient skills; till he's squeezed out the last drop of the oil of the Pharisees; till his only hope is somehow or other to have captured one criminal, and kept him safe and sane under his own hat.--G.K. Chesterton, The Secret of Father Brown

That's what historian Gary Wills, in his book Saint Augustine, A Life, calls "good Augustinian doctrine." You can get into the mind of a sinner only by knowing that you, yourself, are a sinner.

In other words, the old child's taunt is true: "It takes one to know one."

The next time you sign on to Netflix or Amazon Prime or Hulu and watch an episode of The Sopranos or Breaking Bad, it might make an interesting exercise to admit to yourself those instances where the reactions of the criminals mirror your own initial reaction to the situation. While you might, through the exercise of will, based upon whatever you believe forms your character, refrain from following through on your initial impulses, it's instructive to admit that you know what those men are feeling when they swing the fist or pipe, or pull the trigger. It might also be instructive to admit how thin the razor's edge might be in your particular case between action and restraint.

05/23/2016

Maybe not where you come from, Sigourney, but here in Texas, it gets you more than half-way to the perfect woman. All she needs is a bottle of Shiner Bock in the other hand, and we're all the way there.

05/22/2016

Despite the 2 seconds of jumps at the start, this rare clip of Buddy Rich's band sums up the kind of music that I, the child and sibling of jazz musicians, grew up around and played. This is so evocative of my teenage and young adult years, and stirs up so many memories of my late father, brother and sister, that I couldn't not post it.

A 17 year-old kid from a small town in Upstate New york (I was once one of those) posted this to youtube.com. Hell, I didn't know young people even knew that Buddy Rich once existed. There may be hope for the future of mankind, yet.

As the young man who posted this (a kindred spirit across at least two generations) notes:

At The Top, recorded at The Top of the Plaza in Rochester, NY on February 6, 1973, remains one of the most sought-after and influential shows ever recorded by Buddy Rich. Buddy was in his absolute prime that night, and his band was one of the best editions he ever had, roaring on definitive classics, such as the odd time signature-laden "TIME CHECK," seen here. (Sorry for the two quick jumps near the start, its fine other than those 2 seconds).

Don't be sorry, kid. You done good.

I last saw Buddy Rich's band live at the Kansas City Jazz Festival in 1971. He and Woody Herman's Thundering Herd traded sets back and forth. Most of the members of both bands were young men in their late teens or early twenties. Rich once admitted to Johnnie Carson on the Tonight Show that he routinely raided the Berklee College of Music in Boston for their best talent. It showed.

If you don't care for it, move on down the road. Me, I'm gonna' swim in those waters for a while.

05/18/2016

“It is only the infinite mercy and love of God that has prevented us from tearing ourselves to pieces and destroying His entire creation long ago. People seem to think that it is in some way a proof that no merciful God exists, if we have so many wars. On the contrary, consider how in spite of centuries of sin and greed and lust and cruelty and hatred and avarice and oppression and injustice, spawned and bred by the free wills of men, the human race can still recover, each time, and can still produce men and women who overcome evil with good, hatred with love, greed with charity, lust and cruelty with sanctity. How could all this be possible without the merciful love of God, pouring out His grace upon us? Can there be any doubt where wars come from and where peace comes from, when the children of this world, excluding God from their peace conferences, only manage to bring about greater and greater wars the more they talk about peace?” ― Thomas Merton, The Seven Storey Mountain

As a recent penance, I was told to pray the Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi. The priest told me to pray it like I meant it.

Not to denigrate patriotism, but the world might be a much different place if, as children, we had prayed this before school at the start of each day, in lieu of reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. Of course, that would be bringing religion into the public square, and that is an unthinkable abomination ito a society steeped in today's secular humanist ethos.

“Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace.Where there is hatred, let me sow love,Where there is injury, pardon;Where there is doubt, faith;Where there is despair, hope;Where there is darkness, light;And where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console, to be understood as to understand, to be loved, as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive,It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.”

05/15/2016

I had an amusing (to me) conversation this past week with a person who claimed that he had "dodged a bullet" when a business partnership that he had been negotiating for himself did not work out. He asserted that it was obvious that God saved him from making a mistake. I asked him why it might not have been that God had not saved the other party from making a mistake? I laughed when I said that, but he was not amused. He has a high opinion of himself, and, like Donald Trump, does not possess a self-deprecating sense of humor. I had two friendships implode in the past year. In both cases, I believe that they needed to end, although I regret the acrimony and pain that accompanied the "breakups." However, I believe that it is just as likely that if God's will was involved in either event, he was looking out primarily for the best interests of the other parties, or, perhaps, the best interests of all of us, than solely my best interests. Even if you don't actually possess humility, it seems to me that you ought to at least attempt to convincingly fake it. It makes you a smaller target, if nothing else.

05/05/2016

A sick society must think much about politics, as a sick man must think much about his digestion; to ignore the subject may be fatal cowardice for one as for the other. But if either comes to regard it as the natural food of the mind—if either forgets that we think of such things only in order to be able to think of something else—then what was undertaken for the sake of health has become itself a new and deadly disease. — C.S. Lewis

This time around, we are presented with the prospect of choosing the lesser of two evils. I choose neither.

This election season, I choose to focus on the "natural food of the mind." The sorry state of our current political parties is a symptom, not a cause, of our country's--our civilization's--sickness. I will look elsewhere for the cure. No politician, no political party, possesses the remedy. It is not that I do not think that we should think about politics at all. Rather, I see nothing in either primary (or any secondary) candidate, or in any political party, major or minor, that will cure what ails us as a people.

Each of us who claims to be "a believer" needs to start acting like we actually believe. We need to concentrate on the small corner of the universe that we touch, and the first things, the permanent things. For a Christian, that starts and ends with Christ.

If we have a chance of redeeming the time, it won't be by writing essays extolling the virtues or vices of any specific candidate, party, or political creed. It will be by trying to remove as many barriers as we can to allowing God into our personal lives, and letting whatever light results from the flame that is thus ignited radiate outward like ripples in the water.